Pizza. Just hearing the word makes my mouth water and brings back a flood of fond memories.
As a kid, I would gorge on pizza when I visited my family back east. One of my favorite places was a little hole-in-the-wall called Geno’s in Waterbury, Connecticut, where I would fill my belly with sausage pies and meatball grinders. In high school, I would hang out with my girlfriends at Ken’s Pizza in Joplin after Friday night football games, eating thin crust pizza, playing Pac-Man, and laughing while putting quarters in the jukebox. When I lived in Columbia, Missouri for college and grad school, one of my main haunts was Shakespeare’s Pizza, not just for the food, but for the adult beverages served in giant plastic tumblers. I still make sure to go to Shakespeare’s Pizza whenever I go back to my old haunts, but these days it’s just for the food. During a trip to Italy, I had some of the best food of my life in Rome. Eggplant pizza was a casual meal enjoyed outdoors with workers on their lunch break, and even today pizza remains a popular choice for gatherings with friends and family, especially when it’s from a local place.
If you love nostalgia, togetherness and pizza, the Joplin Public Library recently added a cookbook to its collection just for you. “Pizza Night: Delicious Pizza and Salad Recipes” by Alexandra Stafford.
In her introduction, Stafford talks about what pizza means to her, and like me, it’s filled with memories from different periods in her life: her childhood after her parents divorced, the pizza and beer she shared with the man who would become her husband in college, the different pizzerias she dined at while traveling as a couple in her youth.
I was immediately engrossed in her reminiscences.
After introducing herself, she quickly launches into the essentials, detailing what a home cook needs to make a delicious pizza. There are a variety of kitchen tools to choose from, including a scale, pizza peel, baking pan, cast iron skillet, and pizza cutter. Quality ingredients are key, and some of them include type “00” flour, yeast, canned San Marzano tomatoes, olive oil, and cheeses such as mozzarella.
She shares some basic recipes for what she calls “Neapolitan” dough, sourdough “Neapolitan,” thin crust, pan pizza, and gluten-free.
I love cookbooks that showcase seasonal cooking, Stafford says, by adapting recipes to ingredients that are readily available in any season, whether summer, fall, winter, or spring.
If you have extra tomatoes from your garden in the summer, try this grilled pizza with oven-dried tomatoes, mascarpone and basil pesto. Got some peaches or spicy chili peppers at your local farmers market? Try grilling a peach pizza with jalapeños, prosciutto and crème fraîche.
In the fall, pizzas get a bit heartier: Detroit-style pepperoni pizza, roasted butternut squash pizza with gruyere and rosemary (though I’d probably substitute sage for the rosemary), and caramelized leek and potato pizza with chive cream is equally appealing.
What do you think would go well with a winter pizza? How about a clam pizza with garlic, olive oil and pecorino cheese, or a winter white pizza with garlic and herbs? How about a roasted wild mushroom pizza with garlic, thyme and fontina?
Spring brings a reintroduction of different produce and makes things a little brighter. I’m eager to try the white pizza with arugula, pistachios and honey. Prefer more nutritious veggies? Try the kale pizza with sizzling leeks and crème fraîche. Can you believe pineapple is a must-have on pizza? Here’s our recipe for pineapple pizza with bacon and jalapenos.
Stafford features salads on “pizza night” because they need to balance out tasty meats, seafood, and cheeses, and the book opens with several pages of salad dressings, from a basic red wine vinaigrette to a vegan creamy cashew dressing.
If you like salads, there are plenty of options here. I opt for a basic summer tomato salad right now, with three kinds of tomatoes, burrata or fresh mozzarella, and basil tossed in vinegar and oil. In the fall, I might spring for a mixed greens salad with plums, blue cheese, and candied walnuts. I love kale, so in the winter, I opt for a winter kale salad with roasted delicata squash, dates, and almonds. In the spring, I’ll go a little lighter with a baby spinach salad with apples, pine nuts, and goat cheese.
Lest we forget, there’s a chapter on desserts. To be honest, I skimmed through it because I was craving pizza after reading this cookbook, but I like the author’s approach. If you like it simple, there’s the berries and cream or one-bowl chocolate chip cookies. Want a more traditional Italian sweet treat? There’s a recipe for loaf pan tiramisu and an affogato with homemade vanilla gelato. Citrus fruits tickle your taste buds? This one-bowl lemon ricotta pound cake is delicious with berries.
“Pizza Night” is a fun and inspiring way to spend an afternoon with this cookbook, and it brought back so many fond memories. In fact, I liked it so much that I’m considering purchasing a copy to add to my cookbook collection. I hope you enjoy “Pizza Night” as much as I do. Look for it on the new nonfiction shelves at the Joplin Public Library.
